Tell that to someone frustrated by their being unable to find a job. Last December, Berrylands in the Marlborough region hired about 60 people to pick its boysenberries, raspberries and strawberries at Appleby. "People have been queuing for jobs as there are very few around. Our phones have been ringing all the time with people wanting work" said Peter Kristovski [Nelson Mail 14-12-12].

For several years, young people have been taught that they need a degree to get a job. In the commodification of education, thousands are enslaved to debt for years to come. In many instances it was not necessarily essential for job applicants to have a degree, but it helped employers sift out applicants. Now that that ruse for sifting out job applicants has failed, there is a new one. Applicants now also must have work experience. A recent job searcher, back from Australia, complained" until I can get the on-the-job experience that so many employers require, but are not willing to give, I'm stuck in the mud - along with plenty of my fellow graduates."

One wonders whether it is genuine concern that the New Zealand Parliamentary Opposition has instigated an inquiry into the "crisis" in manufacturing with one of its purposes to come up with "concrete ideas" to stem the decline in jobs. However as a writer on the NZ Herald suggests, it may be just a means of testing their compatibility ahead of possible coalition talks.

It is not as though the Labour Party hasn't been concerned about unemployment for many years. When in Government they seem to be adept at creating it. And even when they try to resolve the problem, they fail. Didn't a former Labour Party President when in power not so long ago create a "Jobs Machine"? It either didn't start or stalled soon after.

Politicians are always bleating about creating jobs- and that's all they do, bleat. When wanting to introduce some unpopular measure, their justification is that it would "create jobs". And the gullible accept it in their desperation for a job.

China is the place to where manufacturing was/is outsourced because of its cheap labour and currency advantages. And yet even China is facing a disgruntled mass of people. Growing unemployment and hard working conditions are upsetting too many as is the loss of jobs.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese owned electronic manufacturer on mainland China, has plans to replace some of its 230,000 workers, (on about $20 for a 12 hours day) with a million robots over three years.

As Simon Duke reported for the London Sunday Times [23-12-12] A greater long-term threat for China will come from the unrelenting march of technology. Humans are becoming increasingly obsolete in the manufacturing process. In future, machines will be able to stitch together the hundreds of miniscule parts that make up a modern gadget - a task that today can only be performed by a nimble-fingered worker.

So just where are the jobs to come from? People need jobs for many social reasons, but when nearly everyone talks about jobs they mean paid employment. Slashing services, selling off public assets, "reforming social welfare", and raising taxes won't cure the ills of unemployment. To maintain a sustainable and productive economy requires a visionary leap into the new. It needs new methods of public financing and we won't have that while the present occupants of the House of Representatives fumble around.

We should always remember that "until there are no more things left to do, nothing worthwhile to be achieved, until nobody wants anything done for them, until then no one should be unemployed".

James Niloc, Social Issues commentator, DSC

Published: February 2013